Rarely do ideas survive for long if they’re not worthy. But just because some expressions have been perceived as shocking does not automatically make them irrelevant or useless. In fact, provocations in creative thought are not only natural but necessary.
Read MoreUNCONSTRAINED BY FACTS
Without a desire to examine the surrounding world—without intense curiosity about how things might look or sound or be told to others—people don’t generally feel powerful urges to create.
Read MoreONE LEAF AT A TIME
The next time you’re working on a project requiring many hands to complete, be sure to introduce yourself to the person making coffee with as much generosity as you introduce yourself to the top dogs on the team. The sum total of the effort requires the sum total of all involved.
Read MoreTHE LIFE SPAN OF LOVE LETTERS
Ask a historian or archaeologist if there’s value in so-called archaic, ordinary letters, and the answer is obvious. But ask someone who’s just broken up with a long time paramour and you’ll get a different answer.
Read MoreBURNING MAN
The honest-to-goodness, grab-you-by-the-shoulder interesting stuff is over here, out on the edge, just before the rest of the world discovers it. You can aspire, but if you want to be a real part of that genesis culture, you can't pretend. You have to dive in and be honest about it all the first place. Acts of honest creation cannot be easily bought.
Read MoreTHERE’S NOTHING VIRTUAL ABOUT REALITY
There are great, even thrilling and vital new worlds to discover in virtual space. But it’s essential that narrative and story always direct the action, lest purely flashy but irrelevant sensations overwhelms the reason for spending time someplace that only pretends to be real.
Read More
THE ACCELERATING FALL
When I walk into a book store I hear lives in chorus, humanity suggesting that it might have a redeemable essence, that we just might overcome the forces always trying to undo our best parts.
Read MoreDAY AT THE MUSEUM
What is she thinking? The real question should be, "What are you thinking?"
Read MoreHIDDEN THINGS
The horizon line marks those places with an edge beyond which you cannot see, and there are more places you cannot see from where you're sitting right now than there are places you can see.
Read MoreSAVING THE WORLD
Science is an endless process. It builds on itself. But just like life, science means nothing if the fruits of its efforts aren’t shared with others.
Read More